The big picture: Curved ultrawide monitors exceeding 40 inches from companies like LG, Dell, Philips, and Samsung have gained prominence over the last few years. Asus has revealed a product at Computex that combines the form factor with a QD-OLED panel, intensifying the company's competition with Samsung's Odyssey Neo G9.
Asus has unveiled a 49-inch QD-OLED addition to its lineup of ROG ultrawide monitors. Outside the display technology, the PG49WCD looks similar to Samsung's Odyssey Neo G9 and the XG49WCR Asus introduced in January.
Like its counterparts in the ultra-high-end monitor space, Asus' new screen is 5,120 x 1,440 pixels – essentially two 27-inch 1440p monitors fused side-by-side. Like the XG49WCR, it tries to cover the user's periphery vision with a 1,800R curvature.
Compared to other 49-inch 5K monitors, the QD-OLED model's main sacrifice is in refresh rate. It's limited to 144 Hz (with a 0.03ms response time and AMD FreeSync Premium), while the XG49WCR reaches 165 Hz, and Samsung's offering achieves 240 Hz.
The PG49WCD boasts VESA DisplayHDR True Black 400 certification with 10-bit color and 99 percent DCI-P3 color gamut. With HDR enabled, the peak brightness is 1,000 nits across three percent of the display's surface area.
The monitor includes a sizable cooling apparatus. The rear-mounted heatsink provides a fanless solution for the mainboard, while the panel manages thermals with a graphene film layer just beneath.
Asus doesn't say exactly how many ports the PG49WCD includes, and the provided pictures aren't quite big enough to tell, but the company confirmed it features DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.1 outputs. It also features multiple USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports and a 90W Type-C port.
Both of Asus new super-ulrawides feature internal keyboard-video-mouse switching. With two PCs connected to a monitor, users can display video signals from both side-by-side for a two-in-one experience. Moving the mouse cursor between the two sides automatically switches control from one PC to the other, and the USB connection enables seamless file transfers between the devices.
Asus hasn't revealed pricing or availability details for its new 49-inch 5K displays, but they will likely be expensive. The Odyssey Neo G9 launched at $2,500 but has since frequently been offered around the $1,700 range, so don't be surprised if the Asus monitors are in that neighborhood.